The Next Big Thing

Special thanks to Kiwi Writers’ Jhakka for tagging me in! Jhakka (check out her blog & twitter) has written deeply personal blogs both on Kiwi Writers and on her blog — all of which have inspired me to continue writing one way or the other.

These are the rules:

* Give credit to the person / blog that tagged you

* Post the rules for the blog hop

*Answer these ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress) on your blog

*Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing:

What is the working title of your book?

Thief. It’s self explanatory really, the story’s about a thief… well, several thieves. Really it should be called Thieves, but Thief just sounds cooler, even it is already the name of a popular video game and countless other things I’m sure.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Kiwi Writers was doing its own version of NaNoWriMo (basically the aim is to write 50,000 words in a month), called the Southern Cross Novel Competition (or SoCNoc), and I was struggling with ideas until I started thinking about events in my own life. I had just had my car stolen and was still hurting about it, so I decided to write from the perspective of a guy and his friends who rob houses for fun and for profit. It’s not about car thieves, and it’s hardly related at all, but that was the germ that started it all.

What genre does your book fall under?

This is kinda tricky. At my local writer’s group I said it was Young Adult and Crime. Some of the stuff I’ve written is a little inappropriate for young audiences so I’m uncertain if it still fits under that category. The leads are all in their teens, apart from the antagonists (the cops), the parents, and an older girl in her late twenties.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Movie? C’mon, it’s too early for that people!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A thief giving into his selfish indulgences will cost him dearly.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I was thinking of self publishing to start with, but even then I don’t know if it’s up to standard. It is my first work after all, and might only be used as a learning curve and a stepping stone to bigger things.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I started for SoCNoc in June and reached a little over 20,000 words. Had a wee break, wrote a bit more, and finished the rest of it in September for our Writer’s Plot challenge (another 50,000 words).

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

There’s a bunch of fantastic, well known young adult novels I’ve read such as the Tomorrow When The War Began series by John Marsden and the Northern Lights (His Dark Materials) trilogy by Phillip Pullman. I can’t really compare their works to mine, but I attempted to make the voices of my teen characters real, funny, and opinionated like Marsden and Pullman pull off so effortlessly.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Me! I set a goal for this year to write a novel, and lookie here, I did it! But really it was the SoCNoc that got me going, and I also couldn’t have done it without encouragement from my email buddy Necia, and the Writer’s Plot crew.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It’s set in Auckland, so there’s a few New Zealand references here and there. It’s really about a bunch of kids taking the wrong path and getting in a whole bunch of trouble.

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4 thoughts on “The Next Big Thing”

Nice insights, Michael. And thanks for the tag. I’m going to defer posting mine until November though. Work life should have calmed down by then, and I’ll have the chance to actually doing some writing!

Nice insights, Michael. And thanks for the tag. I’m going to defer posting mine until November though. Work life should have calmed down by then, and I’ll have the chance to actually doing some writing!